'Prettiest Farm' award brings visitors to couple's property

     When the Randy and Debbie Toenjes farm off Highway 151 was featured in “Our Iowa” magazine, they quickly learned the kind of popularity such an article can bring.

     The farm, right next to the highway on the southern end of Monticello, was featured in the magazine’s issue of October/November 2021, and entitled, “The Prettiest Farm in Iowa.”

     Naturally, people wanted to see it.

     “We had people stopping from the Quad Cities, Des Moines, and central Illinois,” Debbie said. “We had people driving in (to the farm).”

     “With the magazine,” Randy added.

     One woman, who passes through Eastern Iowa on an annual basis from Colorado, stopped and told Debbie, “I wanted to meet the people that lived here.”

     “She said she always looked forward to watching the progress each year,” Debbie added.

     They also received cards, Debbie said, “from people we didn’t even know, that get the magazine.”

     The farm itself has been a 25-year labor of love, involving, as the magazine article stated, “construction, landscaping and preening.”

     It includes dozens of trees, flowers cared for by Debbie, their house, grain bins and tidy-looking sheds.

     It sits on 70 acres of land they purchased in 1989. They built a nearby house in 1990, hoping it would one day be used in a trade for a complete farm.

     Randy said they were looking for “somebody who wanted to retire, but still wanted to stay out in the country.

     “We were there seven years, and found nothing,” he added. “We were out of grain storage, our shop was outdated and too small; we just needed a lot of upgrades. We were also looking forward to having access to three-phase electricity.

     “We thought this was the perfect location to do that. So we built everything here from scratch.”

     They broke ground in July 1997, and over time, things were added to make it the “prettiest farm” it is today.

     “We’re very proud of what we were able to do. We tried to plan far enough ahead, and this was the result,” Randy said. 

     The editor of “Our Iowa” came to check out the farm in mid-July 2020, said it was what the magazine was looking for, and sent a photographer to the farm for a two-day photo shoot July 23 and 24 of that year.

     On Aug. 10, the derecho that affected much of Eastern Iowa hit. The photographer called shortly afterward to make sure the couple had received the photos, but was also curious about the effects of the derecho.

     “They called back,” Randy said, “and they said, ‘We hate to ask, but is everything still there?’ We lost one small tree, is all.”

     A year went by before the editor came back out to do the interview for the article, which was then published in the fall of 2021.

     “He was super to work with,” Debbie said. “Our whole experience working with the magazine was very nice.”

     Randy and Debbie both grew up on farms, Debbie near Oelwein and Randy in Anamosa. They met on a blind date. They were married in 1979, and have three grown daughters and five grandsons.

     They also live on a farm that is recognized for its beauty, whether people know they are couple who lives there or not.

     “People will say, ‘How close are you to that new farm?’ ” Debbie said. “They still call us the new farm.”